Now that Toronto is in the rearview mirrors, the teams and drivers of the Champ Car World Series travel west, to the City of Champions, Edmonton, Alberta for the West Edmonton Mall Grand Prix of Edmonton. In their inaugural visit, then-RuSport driver A.J. Allmendinger seemed to have the race won.....until he gift-wrapped a victory to Sebastien Bourdais courtesy of A.J. slapping the turn 11-12 walls, ending his day mere laps from a victory. Now with Forsythe Championship Racing, Allmendinger's won three straight races(Portland, Cleveland and Toronto) and now sets his sights on the one that got away. Can he equal Bourdais' four-win streak, or will someone else claim the top step on the podium?

Here is the event schedule for the race weekend.......
(note: all times Canadian Mtn. Time/U.S. MDT, -2 hrs U.S. EDT, -6 hrs GMT)

After missing the last round in Toronto due to sponsorship woes, Rocketsports Racing confirmed Tuesday that Dutch driver Nicky Pastorelli will be back with the team in the #8 Rocketsport entry for the upcoming round; future decisions for the remainder of the season will be set race by race.

Despite spinning in the turn 11-12 carousel, Forsythe Championship Racing's A.J. Allmendinger(#7 Indeck/Forsythe FC/L) set the fastest time in the 90-minute opening session, besting former RuSport teammate Justin Wilson(#9 CDW FC/L) by .327 seconds. Rounding out the top-5 were last year's winner, Sebastien Bourdais, then rival Paul. Tracy and Team Australia's Will Power.

What a difference a year makes.......last year, Sebastien Bourdais(#1 McDonald's FC/L) struggled in qualifying, starting 10th in last year's inaugural race in Edmonton; this year, he will start no worse than second, as he edged out A.J. Allmendinger for the porvisional pole in the QS-1 session Friday afternoon. Here is the provisional top-5...........

........Its' weekends like these that show why it pays to use those frequent flyer miles................

Let's see.............currently enroute from Edmonton to Milwaukee for Saturday's trackside action; here's a glimpse of what happened back in Gretzky's 'ole stompin' grounds.......

1}Am I getting to you? That's the sentiment current series champion Sebastien Bourdais believes is happeneing over at Forsythe Championship Racing, after hearing Paul Tracy declare to the world that, rhetorically speaking, its' "checkers or wreckers" time for him the remainder of the season, to which SeaBass, never one to leave a good chance to pip his rival, remarked to reporters that since A.J. Allmendinger's arrived at Forsythe, the American's "getting in Tracy's head". Remember, everyone, its', to quote PT, "checkers or wreckers" time......or is it?

2}He's got........that RuSport look.......... With apologies to the Everly Brothers, A. J. Allmendinger had an interesting conversation with FCR VP-Operations Neil Micklewright Friday afternoon after spinning in turn 1 and crashing into the concrete retaining barriers. When he returned to the pits, he got chewed out a little bilt by Micklewright, but as Mickelwright put it........

A.J. came back with that 'RuSport' look. I said, 'What the hell's wrong with you? You break it, we'll fix it, and you'll win Sunday.

Confidence building 101, hmmm?

3}Just like old times, heh? For rookies Charles Zwolsman and Katherine Legge, Friday's first practice session was almost a mirror image of their Atlantics' race last year, in which the Flying Dutchman did everything but throw the kitchen sink at the Brit, only to watch her use another car to get around him. In the practice session, the same thing happened again; this time, the unlucky driver was none other that PT himself, who wondered what they were doing. Maybe A.J. has gotten into his head, if he's wondering those thoughts................

After taking the provisional pole on Friday, what, possibly, could current series champion Sebastien Bourdais do for an encore...........why, win the pole in Saturday qualifying, of course! A combination of fast qual. laps and mistakes by competitors allowed the Frenchman to capture the pole for Sunday's West Edmonton Mall Grand Prix of Edmonton, allowing him to extend his points lead over rival A.J. Allmendinger by another point; the lead currently stands at 24. Here is the starting lineup for the race.......

With racetime about 2 hours away, here are some of the things floating around the weekend notebook.................

1}Nice recoveries, gentlemen...............Two drivers made great recoveries on the starting grid from QS-1 to QS-2; Forsythe's A.J. Allmendinger went from 17th on Friday up to 4th for the race. The other major upward move came from Team Australia's Will Power, who failed to post a time in QS-1 after a hard crash in Fri. practice(credited w/a prov. 18th), then put the 7th-fastest time in the bank for the #5 Aussie Vineyards car.

2}Could it happen? I've often said that, if a merger btwn. the IRL and ChampCar doesn't occur, the next best thing could be if teams move from one series to the other. According to the ar1.com rumors page, that could happen, and three teams are being mentioned.......Marlboro-Team Penske, Target/Ganassi Racing, and Rahal-Letterman Racing. And the source of that was none other than RLR co-owner Bobby Rahal, who's in Edmonton to watch son Graham race in the Atlantic Championship. When asked, he was quoted as saying "Penske, Ganassi or ourselves could be 50-50 if a merger doesn't happen (in 2007)."

3}More blues...............for newman-Haas Racing's Bruno Junquiera, it's been a near-abysmal season, and yesterday was no exception; for the third time this year, he had to use his QS-1 time to post his fastest qual. time for the race grid. Unlike the first two times, yesterday was his fault, as he suffered minor damage to the car trying to push for a pole-winning time.......instead, he'll start 9th.